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A Memorandum from the Confessional Church
The Epistles of the Apostle Paul were seen by the DC as endangering the
German Mind to think "jewishly". Just as the Old Testament was warned against
by Goebbels and others, the DC Christian was admonished to stay away from traditional
teachings in the Pauline epistles, describing the Rabbi Paul as an introvert who
taught self-effacement instead of German pride. The following letter from the Confessional
Church, is in response to the arrest and imprisonment of a Pastor whose great crime was
teaching Romans 11, the Chapter commanding mercy towards the Jews and the Jewish nature of
the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
The Epistle of St. Paul Is in Error:  In
submitting the following facts [of persecution] as they have been
reported to us, we would like to address this question to you, Herr
Reichminister [Rudolph Hess]; In your opinion, how long will it be
possible to maintain domestic peace among our people, among whom
doubtless many racial comrades are convinced members of the Christian
Church and whose government, on the basis of Article 24 of its party
platform claims to extend protection to positive Christianity if state
officials openly impede and persecute Chrsitianity and the Church? The
following will show what we mean. On Saturday, February 27-- -that is, on a day which was clearly within the purview of the Führer's Decree on choice----Pastor Zedlacher in Hamburg, an Austrian citizen, was interrogated by the Gestapo in connection with a Bible class he had conducted on February 24, 1937,. We must call it utterly unworthy of a German official that the material for this interrogation was procured by a professional informer who managed by stealth to gain entrance to the Bible class. We must, furthermore designate as intolerable and a mockery the fact that contrary to all assurances that the freedom of preaching would be inviolable, Zedlacher was specifically criticized for using Paul's Epistle to the Romans Verse 11 as a text for his lesson. It is indisputably asserted in the Epistle to the Romans, Verse 11, that the choice of Israel by god is unalterable. Zedlacher was only acting in accordance with his duties as a Bible teacher when he passed on to his pupils what is written in the Bible. The same applies to the assertions for which the Gestapo criticize Zedlacher---namely, that Jesus was not an Aryan but a Jew, and that despite Reichminister Kerrl's contrary opinion, it cannot be denied that Christ's sonship from God is the fundamental dogma of Christianity from the standpoint of a confessing evangelical Christianity. More monstrous even than his interrogation was the treatment to which Zedlacher was exposed during the time he spent in protective custody. How can responsible state officials justify the fact that in the concentration camp an official of the Church was called a Jew-lover and Jew-slave, and was told that the best thing would be to save mankind from the likes of him? How can the protectors of positive Christianity account for the fact that a helpless prisoner was mocked and ridiculed by SS troopers on duty because he still happened to believe in the Bible, and was told that they would soon cure him of his piety? One of these SS men---a guard paid by the state----even had the insolence to ask the prisoner: "would you like me to give your greetings to your God, Jehova? He's coming to visit us today." When Zedlacher answered that this would not be necessary and that they should not mock the Lord, he was rudely barked at and ordered not to be so impertinent. Seemingly [they said] he did not know where he was and they warned him that if he said just one more word, he would get a severe beating and be sentenced to five days' solitary confinement on bread and water. We also see a brutal mockery of Christian belief and the fact that Zedlacher was asked whether he thought the Jew Jesus would help him escape from the concentrations camp and from the treatment he was receiving from the guards. We shall spare ourselves the recital of further revolting details, but in this connection we must point out one thing: To us the deep significance of Zedlacher's reports likes not alone in the fact that they establish how grossly the Christian faith can be mocked and persecuted within the framework of the state, but also in the very existence of concentration camps constitutes a heavy burden for the Christian conscience. Zedlacher's release from the concentration camp, upon the interventions of of the Austrian Consul-General, can by no means be considered a reparation for the wrong done, since Zedlacher was expelled from the territories of the Reich and left Hamburg on March 31, 1937, after, by the way being bid farewell by a large circle of the people among whom he worked. (1937) Cited in Mosse, George L. Nazi Culture: Intellectual Cultural and Social Life in the Third Reich Grosset & Dunlap: NY, 1966; from: Deutsche Kirchendokumente: Die Haltung der Bekenneden Kirche in dritten Reich, compiled by W. Jannasch (Zollikon-zurich: Evangelischer Verlag A.G.: 1946, pp.44-47. |